This invention relates to a sweeper apparatus, and in particular to an apparatus for sweeping grass cuttings from a lawn.
The usual practice when cutting the normal lawn is to either leave the cuttings on the lawn or to collect the cuttings in a bag for disposal. Large lawns are usually cut using a ride-on type lawn mower, e.g. a small tractor with a lawn mower attachement. Removal of the grass cuttings from the lawn can present a problem. On large lawns, raking is out of the question. A removable grass catcher of the type used on a manually operated lawn mower would require frequent emptying.
A solution to the above defined problem is to gather the cuttings into large piles, which can relatively quickly and easily be removed from the lawn. This is the approach taken by the present inventor. A search of the patent literature discloses that others have taken the same approach. In this connection, reference is made to Canadian Patents Nos. 227,508, which issued to E. E. Laberge on Dec. 26, 1922, 878,829, which issued to W. Snerchynski et al on Aug. 24, 1971 and 957,463, which issued to D. D. Dankel et al on Nov. 12, 1974, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,749,564, which issued to C. E. Tally on Jun. 12, 1956, 3,493,987, which issued to H. F. Longnecker on Feb. 10, 1970 and 3,597,786, which issued to W. F. Ruhl on Aug. 10, 1971.
The majority of the patented devices are relatively simple manually operated devices for pushing across a lawn to sweep lawn cuttings into a container. The remaining patents relate to devices which are either relatively complicated or ill adapted for use with ride-on lawn mowers of the type including a small tractor with a lawn mower attachment.
The object of the present invention is to provide a relatively simple lawn sweeper apparatus, which is easy to operate, and which permits the driver of the vehicle to remain seated while the apparatus is unloaded.